Checking in with soap star Lesli Kay
CHARLESTON GAZETTE
July 30, 2003
By Marina Hendricks
Staff Writer
| Back on the job after illness forced her to
take a six-week hiatus, Lesli Kay is relishing the changes in store for
Molly, the character she plays on “As the World Turns.”
“Molly’s back to
her bar,” said Kay, a George Washington High School graduate who was in town
last weekend for her 20-year high school reunion. “They’re taking her back
to her feisty, give ’em hell self.”
The actress, who won a Daytime Emmy in 2001 for her work on the CBS soap
opera, is returning after a mysterious bout with acute inflammatory
arthritis prompted her to quit working temporarily. “We’re still not sure
what caused it,” she said.
She is looking forward to the reprieve from the “woe is me” turn that her
grief-stricken character took after a series of personal tragedies: the
death of her husband, Jake; the removal of her children from her home; the
discovery of her boyfriend’s infidelity.
“She went from good girl to ‘ho’ in one fell swoop,” Kay said. “People
didn’t like it. I think she’s going to be fighting for herself now. She’s
coming into her own.
“Now that I’m in the bar, I’m going to get some good clothes. I told them
I want the J-Lo collection,” she added with a laugh.
As a mother, Kay enjoys the flexible schedule that soap opera work gives
her. She and her fiancé, former “ATWT” actor Keith Coulouris, have a
3-year-old son, Jackson.
“It’s a great job for a mommy, and I want to have another baby,” she
said, noting that if all goes as planned, she wants her pregnancy written
into her role.
She’s already seeing signs that her son may follow in his parents’
footsteps. “Jackson memorizes like I do and he loves the movies. He wants to
act.”
|
Photographer: Kenny Kemp
Lesli Kay, a Charleston native, has a book and a Pilates video in the
works on top of her regular job playing Molly on the CBS soap opera “As the
World Turns.”
|
He accompanied his mother to an audition and cried when he couldn’t try out
for a part. After catching a glimpse of an “ATWT” tape of Jake’s death that Kay
was reviewing for Daytime Emmy competition, he developed a new talent. “He plays
dead!” she said.
Kay and her son are living by themselves in the family’s Brooklyn home right
now while Coulouris is in Los Angeles overseeing the production of “Blood
Brothers,” a low-budget psychological thriller. He not only wrote the script,
but also was tapped to direct.
There’s a part for Kay, but she doesn’t know if her schedule will permit her
to fly out for the shoot. “It would be nice for him to have one person he knows
will listen to him,” she said.
This past season, she did have time to make a guest appearance on the NBC
drama “Law and Order,” as the ex-supermodel girlfriend of that episode’s murder
victim. “She didn’t do it,” Kay said.
She also wants to work in theater, a genre she said resembles the soap opera
in one respect. “We don’t do it live but we have to do it in one take. If you
don’t, you don’t stick around.”
She plans to shoot a video this fall with her Pilates instructor, Jennifer
DeLuca, and start writing a book for St. Martin’s Press about her experiences
with bulimia. She conquered the disorder after graduating from college.
“I’ve got the pictures and I’ve got the outline. It’s been seven years
coming, but I’ve got the fire to do it now,” she said.
Eventually, she’d like to relocate to the West Coast and land a sitcom role.
“After this contract, I’m probably going to L.A. unless they offer me some
outrageous sum of money,” she said with a grin.
To contact staff writer Marina
Hendricks, use e-mail or call 348-4881.
© Copyright 2003 Charleston Gazette
Charleston, West Virginia
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